China’s top anti-corruption body vows to zero in on key state-backed projects

Graft-buster vows to focus on financial sector, state-owned enterprises and law enforcement

President Xi Jinping tells cadres at annual meeting that corruption remains ‘biggest threat to the party’s rule’

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President Xi Jinping (centre) addresses the meeting in Beijing on Friday. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 6:00am, 26 Jan 2021Updated: 9:43am, 26 Jan 2021

The Communist Party’s top anti-corruption body has vowed to keep a close watch on state-backed technology and infrastructure projects and crack down further on graft at the grass-roots level.

In a communique issued on Sunday after a three-day conference in Beijing, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said it would make “unremitting efforts” to strengthen party discipline among the rank and file in the coming year and focus on safeguarding policy goals set by the leadership.

The meeting – attended by more than 130 senior members of the CCDI and their provincial counterparts, President Xi Jinping and other top party leaders – is held annually to review the past year and set the agenda for the next 12 months.

Xi told cadres on Friday that while the CCDI had achieved some success in 2020, corruption remained “the biggest threat to the party’s rule”. He called on the graft-busters to do their utmost to ensure corruption would not undermine the party’s goals.

He said they must not let their guard down in 2021, the start of the country’s next five-year plan that marks a new stage in the party’s ambition to create a “modernised socialist country” by 2049.

Xi Jinping told graft-busters to do their utmost to ensure corruption doesn’t undermine the party’s goals. Photo: Xinhua